Conjuring up the ghost of his dead friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh asks what things are like in the afterlife. Enkidu tells him it might be better that these truths remain hidden, but he agrees to answer the hero's questions about the individual fates of those he knew on earth. It seems that life after death is not so different after all, a somewhat intensified but not inexplicable or inappropriate continuation of worldly behaviour. Ghostly as he is, Enkidu can still be embraced. Achilles is not quite so lucky: after a long conversation with the spirit or phantom of Patroclus in Iliad 23, he reaches out but grasps only air, as the image of his dead friend turns to vapour and disappears beneath the earth, losing language as well as form.

LRB 14 August 2008 | PDF Download